What To Do After a Slip & Fall in Jacksonville

If you’ve suffered from a slip & fall in Jacksonville, the immediate aftermath can be physically traumatizing and confusing. The best way to understand a slip and fall (or trip and fall) case is through an example. The following blog and example will provide guidance in the aftermath of any slip and fall but hiring an attorney immediately is the best way to secure important evidence and your rights.

Example: A person is at a store and while walking down the aisle, slips in some liquid. The injured person is now, by law, responsible for identifying what the liquid is AND oddly enough, how long that liquid has been on the floor. The injured person must prove that the liquid was on the floor long enough to have placed the business ‘on notice’ of the condition and that the business failed to clean it up or warn its customers of the spill.

If at all possible, take pictures of everything including the spill from different angles, the origin of the spill, or footprints in the spill because more pictures are better than fewer pictures. Also, be sure to look around to see if there are any warning cones or signs in the area. Take pictures of those in relation to the spill and maintain the clothing you had on so that the liquid if disputed, can be tested. 

If there are any witnesses, obtain their names and phone numbers, if not their addresses as well. You should also insist that the store take an incident report even if they are resistant. If you are able and they ask that you sign it, make sure to add, ‘I am demanding that you preserve all video footage and details of the substance I slipped on’. This will be immensely helpful moving forward.

Lastly, and we cannot stress this enough–SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION. If you are seriously injured at the scene then it is of paramount importance to have the business owner summon an ambulance/rescue. If you are able to seek emergency care and explain specifically what happened and everything that is sore, hurt, injured, or worse then you will have records of all your potential injuries. If some of those injuries improve, great, but if you fail to mention some, but later try and claim, for instance, a knee for the first time, then the insurance company will deny your claim.